the day beautiful and blue

The day beautiful and blue like an egg of gladness,

like a small persistent sparrow, like a stream of plums

you glide onto from your dream of honey glazing

the brown coffee table, four legs entwined in goo

and tedious homework you somehow love, telling time
and her minions of the diminutive detail to lumber along
at once, you'd rather be absorbed in this disappearing garden,
the fountain your brother bore on his back after those months in solitary,
the voices screaming taunts even his deafness heard.

this day beautiful and blue
an egg of gladness
a small persistent sparrow

                         IMAGINAL LIGHT                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

 

‘Light takes the tree but who can tell us how?”—Theodore Roethke

 

When imaginal light FLOODS the mind receptive

 

becomes a Bosporus where a freighter plows

eastwards steaming like an insomniac’s tortured

evening and a robust swimmer blue-skinned pounds

 

her warrior’s arms through cold clear waters swirling

towards her lover waiting on the Asian shore

perched upon a Vespa sputtering contentment----

 

AND, and only AND----when the humble breathing body staggers

sprints with its moles, fatigue, scars and scabs

 

what occurs takes our babbled breath away

EARTHQUAKES  us to another kind of earth

where caterpillar oozes into a lone imaginal cell,

old testament for the good news’ butterfly….

 

then we’re plunged

3,000 feet beneath this ground

                 

                BOISTEROUS and BEWILDERED

 

all the way from last century's insane wars those years

of bloodshed bombed out Dresden Guernica Nagasaki,

Dachau's cattle cars of clustered skeletons, China’s

perfumed slavery days king opium on his dirty throne

 

from the cloistered monks of Benedict to the MASTERS

OF THE GOLDEN WAY and far far beyond….

 

ahh, when imaginal light FLOODS the mind receptive

                                   RIGA                                                                                          

 

I walk a narrow ledge far above the ancient city’s teeming,

it’s swerving cobblestones, a Pushkin statue shines

in this park reminding of old Paris.

 

A canal below gleams near paths that curve through birches.

Couples stroll among fragrant flowers, lovers eased

by Springtime’s burst of beauty, grateful for this warming.

 

Earlier I wandered Daugava’s edge alone in Riga’s chilly air.

A woman and her white-haired man sat still on morning’s

grassy banks, fishing poles in ruddy hands were steady,

translucent lines thrust far out.

 

They hoped to land enough fish to grill at dusk

with new potatoes and beetroot, swilled down

with vodka fire. With bellies fat and glad

he’d pinch her cheek, whisper spasiba

for their pleasing supper.

 

Now as evening’s northern light slants gold

as melted butter, as lush as vespers sung

by god-soaked monks in this Baltic state

far from home’s palm-treed ocean,

 

you and I avoid each other’s eyes while time flows fast

into the Gulf of Riga for perhaps, one last embalming.

 

At end of day in late May, mute we wait like an old couple fishing

where weeds caress the vast Daugava’s bleeding. We wait and wait

for what’s unnamed and barely breathing, for something eluding

 

us now that may resurface or not, that might never be caught--

a whirlpool swirls eight feet downstream and I am under/

water, seething.

 

 

** ‘spasiba’ -- ‘thank you’ in Russian

                    Reverent                                                                                                 

 

white butterflies float and scatter in bits

of flying glass, tiny linen handkerchiefs

that shudder in the wind. a woman’s

 

chapped trembling lips flutter and spin

cocoons of song, iridescent in flight above

the canyon’s path.  licorice perfumes

 

the coming dusk when low she bows

forehead kissing caterpillar, shale, sage

and bramble toward the ridge beyond

 

where an ageless queen of hearts sails

in gauzy radiance turning

pages of night sky.

     The Dance                                                                               

 Oh tangled death,

I have come to see

on these steamy

 

sidewalks past

the midstream

of my life,

 

we were always,

                always dancing

                             in your spiny arms.

 

Those tangoed nights

       of trance

                flirting with

                             illusion’s flimsy

                                                daughter,

 

smoke-grime on her

tavern window

 

did not curb

                     your

                            stepping.

 

                  Yes, we are dancing

                               even now

                                    through stained-glass

                                                        dappled darkness

 

                                                                      as your rhythm ripples down

                                                          like Autumn’s apples

                                        in our supple mouths.

This Breath

I am thankful for this breath….

and this breath….

and this breath….

The easy rise and fall

of my curved belly

 

this morning

 

on this brown couch

cup of coffee close by

 

This rise and fall

 

rise and fall

 

happening  quietly

 

persistent as a clock

 

as Autumn’s subtle

shift in light and

weather.

             The Voyage                                                                                         

 

I am

         meat

                   for my journey.                                                    

 

This canoe made of birch and ancestors’ bones,

 

is laden with fleece, apples and rye bread, stuffed

cabbage and coffee, a map of charred margins, a rusted

 

nail ripped from Jozo’s Bosnian home, a ring of blue

lapis my other grandfather, and a photo of lovers—

they’re smiling--on a great canyon’s edge.

 

Voices shine friendly through rain-fall and fog across these big waters,

 

                these here in stillness      those already gone,

 

while grenades of stars volcano such love through somnolent skies.

 

We’ll glide in silence over depths painted with eloping and cancer,

      maples and moonshine, soup pots and opera, pie ala’mode.

                                        

Through silver waters      black mud         this voyage continues its flowing,

 

                     woven and nourished by dark bread and story

                      of  Jozo and Ana,  Ruth Raymond and Norma

                                      

                                    to whom I am bowing:

 

                                 I am meat for my journey